Reading Rambo

I'm pretty tired, 'cause I was up late trying to finally wrap up this whole season 2 of Buffy thing I've been working on for like two years. But we've got a readalong post, so that'll be happening on a minorly functioning brain. Yeah, I said "minorly," spellcheck, and you can deal. This seems appropriate for last night AND this book we're reading Johanna had sex, etc etc, big moments in life, controversy because she's like 16 and these musician guys are therefore gross, but the REALLY upsetting thing to me is the NOW CONSISTENT incorrect handling of movie references. Pop culture love is an embarrassingly large part of my life. More particularly movies because growing up in the country, we had no cable. The internet was a tiny baby that could do NOTHING. And there's only so much PBS you can watch in a day, so my siblings and I watched movies ALL THE TIME. Those things are sacred. And Star Wars  -- who's not going to realize somethi...

I remain a huge fan of this book. You should probably pre-order it. Maybe here since Amazon is the devil and independent bookstores are the future YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST (no you didn't). Johanna's obsession with dudes remains nigh-incomprehensible to me, although it did make me flash back to age 12 when I was desperately in love with my brother's best friend (he looked like a teddy bear and gave me half a cookie once, which I was pretty sure meant we were definitely going to happen) and in what I deemed a subtle but cunning gesture, one day sat him down in my oldest brother's room (it had the only stereo in the house), put on the Hello Dolly new Broadway cast recording, and made him listen to me sing along to Irene Molloy's part of Dancing , which goes thusly:   When there's someone you hardly know And wish you were closer to Remember that he can be near to you While you're dancing Though you've only just said hello He's suddenly someone...

Caitlin Moran's debut novel How to Build a Girl continues in this delightful readalong hosted by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) . You should buy this book. Just fyi. It's the pants. And I have made a Spotify playlist for it: How to Build a Girl: The Dolly Wilde Experience . If you've been paying close attention to the book, you will appreciate the hell out of that list. Just saying. So our heroine is now 16-years-old and a high school dropout, but whatever because she has an impressive job reviewing music and is already an excellent writer who calls the Smashing Pumpkins "the new Emperors of Mournful Grunge." I think we're all pretty positive this is just Caitlin Moran's life, but none of us care, because it is fantastically written. Thanks, Caitlin, we know. I don't think a book about teenagers has ever made me relive as much of that time of my life as How to Build a Girl . Shoving brothers off the chair that's used for the one...

The How to Build a Girl readalong is hosted by  Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) and you can pre-order the book at this place right here. Okay, so I was unsure how this novel was going to go, and I just want to say CAITLIN MORAN'S NEW BOOK IS SO GOOD OMG BUY IT WHEN IT COMES OUT I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING I WILL HARASS YOU IF YOU DO NOT I started it Thursday while sitting in my friend Katie-Anne's cubicle, and the fifth time I laughed out loud she wheeled around and said "You are being SUPER-IRRITATING." But there was no stopping, because "When I start kissing, the world is going to know about it. My kissing is going to change everything. I'm going to be the Beatles of kissing." Spending time with Johanna is completely delightful, mostly because she's so unabashed when talking about her life. This feels like a Johanna sentiment So our 14-year-old heroine comes from a large poor family that she's trying to help, lives in t...